Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 7.djvu/542

524 with surprise, the power which uneducated miners frequently possess, of recognizing many minerals at sight. This they have acquired by long experience and close familiarity with such objects, and such power of observation is with them so purely a habit that they are frequently unable to state clearly the grounds on which their conclusions are based. They recognize the minerals by what in common language is called their looks, and they notice delicate differences in the looks to which most men are blind. It is, however, the business of the scientific mineralogist to analyze these looks, and to point out in what the differences consist; so that by fixing his attention on these points the student may gain, by a few hours' study, the power which the miner acquires only after long experience. The chief difficulty, however, which we find in teaching mineralogy is, that the students do not readily see the differences when they ax-e pointed out, or, if they see them, do not remember them with sufficient precision to render their subsequent observations conclusive and precise. This either arises from a failure to cultivate the powers of observation in childhood, or the subsequent blunting of them by disuse. The ladies will scout the idea that a brooch of cut-glass is as ornamental as one of diamond, and yet I venture to assert that there is not one person in fifty, at least of those who have not made a study of the subject, who can tell the difference between the two. The external appearance depends simply on what we call lustre. The lustre of glass is vitreous, that of the diamond adamantine, and I know of no other distinction which it is more difficult for students to recognize than this. Those of you who study mineralogy will experience this difficulty, and it can be overcome only by giving careful attention to the subject. The teacher can do nothing more than put in your bands the specimens which illustrate the point, and you must study these specimens until you see the difference. It is a question of sight, not of understanding, and all the optical theories of the cause of the lustre will not help you in the least toward seeing the difference between diamond and glass, or anglesite and heavy spar. Another illustration of the same fact is the constant failure of students to distinguish by the eye alone between the two minerals called copper-glance and gray copper. There is a difference of color and lustre which, although usually well marked, it requires an educated eye to distinguish.

Mineralogy undoubtedly demands a more careful cultivation of the perceptions than the other branches of chemistry; but still you will find abundant practice for close observation in them all. I have often known students to reach erroneous results in qualitative analysis by mistaking a white precipitate in a colored liquid for a colored precipitate; or by not attending to similar broad distinctions which would have been obvious to any careful observer; and so in quantitative analysis, mere delicacy of touch or handling is a great element of success.